I must confess.  I’m twenty-six years old and this is my first blog.  Given their popularity, this does feel like an inadequacy.   It’s not that I have nothing to say, because believe me, I have my opinions, often voiced too loudly (I come from a family of shouters and excessive gesticulators).  I can only explain my hesitation with the fact that although I love to write, it’s not an easy process for me.  Maybe this is because I learned English as a second language, or because I self-edit too much, whatever the reason, enough is enough.  I announce my arrival on the blogging scene!  (Insert cheers and hyper-applause here).

Perhaps I should introduce myself for those of you who have made it past the first paragraph.  My name is Mehdi Okasi, and I will be taking over for the venerable Rebekah Silverman as editor-in-chief of the Sycamore Review this summer.  One of Rebekah’s many great ideas was the Sycamore Blog, and since Rebekah will be leaving Purdue this summer to take over the world with her poetry, I figured this would be a good time to introduce myself and begin blogging.

I’m still in the process of thinking up a cool name for the blog, something at once witty and discerning (I’m hoping that it’ll just come to me over a dirty Bombay Safire martini).  As for content, I envision a blog that charts the trials and tribulations of a writer in apprenticeship.  Before I started my MFA program here at Purdue this past fall, I did my homework about MFA programs in general.  I was curious about the life of an aspiring writer who opted for the harbor of university instead of the “real world.”  Do they actually make you a better writer?  What’s the lifestyle of an aspiring writer?  How does one change after arriving at an MFA program?  How much writing do you actually get accomplished?  How helpful are the writers you work with?  What does it take to get published?   Those of you interested in the writing life probably can think of a hundred other similar questions.  This, then, will become a place to bring to the foreground issues of an aspiring writer.  Who knows?  If things go well, maybe we’ll get our own reality T.V. show: Joyce Carol Oats as the literary Simon Cowell.  Wow, I just gave myself the shivers.  

I hope to get this blog up and running and eventually have other voices in the program contribute to it, that way, we’ll have a plethora  (I just like the word) of perspectives, and you, our dear reader, will keep coming back for more juicy stories.  Therefore, I envision this blog working partly as a running diary of a writer’s life (and literary gossip is certainly applicable here), but also as a forum to discuss issues of craft. 

There, I did it!  I’ve actually written my first blog!  Now I take over the world.

--Mehdi Okasi, EIC-Elect